How Georgia Aquarium modernized its marketing stack with Customer.io 

Georgia Aquarium exists at the intersection of wonder and conservation. As the largest aquarium in the Western Hemisphere, it welcomes more than three million guests a year—and the team behind the marketing has to meet every one of them where they are.

The team doesn't have the luxury of a bloated tech stack or months of runway to get campaigns out the door. They need a platform that works for marketers, developers, and data folks alike—without requiring constant translation between all three. That's exactly what they found in Customer.io.

Georgia Aquarium had been using Iterable for marketing automation for years, paired with a more traditional CDP. But the team's core data challenge kept compounding: their ticketing platform, Tessitura, is a sophisticated solution that doesn't behave like a standard e-commerce system. Getting useful, actionable data out of it was a constant struggle.

Budget conversations accelerated the timeline. When the team looked at what they were paying versus what they were getting, it was clear there was a better option. Brian Lee, Digital Marketing Manager, found Customer.io through G2's high performer matrix while doing research, explored it, and was immediately struck by how different it felt. His team put it plainly when the switch happened: the platform felt purpose-built for the way modern marketing teams actually work.

Georgia Aquarium’s migration prompted a fundamental architectural shift. Rather than relying on a traditional CDP to ingest Tessitura data directly, the team moved to a warehouse-centric model with BigQuery at the center. Now, data flows from Tessitura into BigQuery to be transformed and prepared, then into Customer.io for activation. Engagement data flows back to BigQuery. It's bidirectional, and it finally gives the team a foundation for personalization at the level they'd always wanted.

One of the most immediate wins from the migration was send volume. Before Customer.io, Georgia Aquarium's send capacity was a meaningful constraint on how they could reach their audience. After the migration, monthly send volume increased by more than 2,000%—fundamentally changing what personalization at scale looks like for the team.

Previously, the constraints on send volume meant broad, broadcast-style campaigns going to everyone. Personalization was limited because they simply couldn't afford to segment deeply and still reach the people they needed to reach. With that ceiling lifted, the team can now build the kinds of targeted journeys that make communication feel more like a conversation.

One of the things Brian comes back to repeatedly is how accessible Customer.io is across his team. Marketers can build segments in plain English using the AI-powered segment builder, without having to write logic or loop in a developer. The AI Agent handles onboarding questions, campaign troubleshooting, and platform guidance, so new team members can get up to speed without a lengthy training process. Brian describes the email review feature as "brutally honest,” but genuinely useful for improving content before it goes out.

Design Studio has been a particular highlight. Brian was already familiar with Parcel, the email building tool Customer.io acquired, so when he discovered the connection, the value was immediately clear.

The team includes both designers who need a visual builder and developers who need to work with underlying logic. Most email tools force a choice between the two. Design Studio doesn't.

Email translation functionality is already built in and ready to use when the team has the language preference data to activate it. Connected surveys are on the near-term roadmap, which will let Georgia Aquarium power journeys based on how visitors respond to survey questions rather than routing all survey data to an external platform that never connects back to anything.

The work Brian is most excited about centers on a simple but powerful idea: the more actionable data flowing into Customer.io, the more meaningfully the team can connect with every guest—whether they've visited once, are annual members, or haven't walked through the doors yet.

That means expanding their use of Customer.io Data Pipelines—pulling in web behavior, Tessitura transaction data, and soon, entry gate data that captures every visit to the building. Each new data source gives the team a richer picture of who a guest is, how engaged they are, and what they need to hear next.

For membership retention, this is a significant unlock. The team's data scientist has identified a clear pattern: members who don't frequently visit the aquarium in their first year are far less likely to renew. With entry gate data flowing into Customer.io, the team will be able to reach those members proactively, before the renewal window, and give them a reason to come back. On the flip side, members who do visit regularly can be recognized and rewarded in ways that reinforce the relationship.

Georgia Aquarium's mission is to inspire wonder and deepen appreciation for the aquatic world—and that work doesn't stop at the exit. Customer.io is how the team extends it, connecting with every guest through the right message at the right moment, whether they visited last weekend or haven't been in years.

Things are going swimmingly, in other words. And if Brian's instinct is right, the campaigns he'll be able to talk about in a few months are going to look even more advanced and personalized than what existed before.